Jetman joins two fighter jets in flight over Swiss Alps

The Jetman takes to the air again, this time alongside the Breitling Jet Team.

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The Jetman in flight over the Swiss Alps, alongside a pair of jet fighters.

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December 1, 2011

By Matthew Shaer

Regular airplanes are pretty boring.

If you want a real thrill, you've got to pull on a rubber jumpsuit and a helmet, strap a gigantic jet wing to your back, and soar around the skies at hundreds of miles per hour. What, that doesn't sound exciting to you? Well, it sure sounds exciting to Yves Rossy, a Swiss native better known as the Jetman.

Rossy, who was born in 1959, spent his early career as a military pilot, before decamping for a cushy captain's gig at Swiss International Air Lines. But his dream was "to try to fly in the most natural way possible, by removing the need for the complicated enclosure an aircraft is," according to his (slightly-stilted and possibly-computer-translated) online bio. So, obviously, he strapped on his own jet wing and started flying without all that "complicated enclosure" stuff.

The Jetman has logged a range of flights over the years, crossing Lake Geneva in 2002, the English Channel in 2008, and the Grand Canyon in 2011, the Daily Mail reports. Rossy's most recent stunt, shown below, involved flying, in formation, over the Swiss Alps, alongside two L-39C Albatross jets. The planes were part of the Breitling Jet Team; Breitling also sponsored Rossy.

In video from the stunt, Rossy plummets out of a helicopter, before activating his engines, and surging forward into formation. So what's powering the famed jet wing? Four Jet-Cat P200 engines, powerful enough to drive the wing, which weighs about 120 pounds with fuel, forward through the air.